


With Me

by owl_coffee



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 16:58:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9081427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owl_coffee/pseuds/owl_coffee
Summary: Baze had always known Chirrut was something special.





	

_The Force is with me._

 

Baze had always known Chirrut was something special. When they were children, Chirrut had lost his sight - an infection they couldn't afford the medicine to heal. But he never lost his acuity and always seemed to sense things Baze found difficult to perceive. The best stick-fighter in their ragtag band of children pretending to be Jedi, Chirrut never lost his edge. It used to drive Baze crazy, trying to beat him.  
"How do you do it?!" he yelled one day, after Chirrut had knocked him to the dust again. They had taken to hanging out in the remnants of the old Temple, the place where the lightsabers had come from - once. "You can't even see when I'm swinging at you!"  
"I can feel it," smiled Chirrut, "Besides, you're so loud! A blind Bantha could avoid your strikes!"  
Just for that taunt, Baze swung at Chirrut's heels from the ground, and managed to catch one of them. His friend stumbled, but didn't fall over.  
"One day, you'll understand," said Chirrut, getting into one of his maddening religious moods. "When the Force is with you, you can do anything."  
"Gah!" Baze turned over and spat into the sand.  
  
Baze was panting, out of breath and in pain. Chirrut put a gentle hand to his friend's face. "They hurt you." It wasn't a question.  
"Hah - " Baze pulled away, "Don't worry about it, I gave as good as I got. And anyway, it's all right. I got it for you!" The lightsaber hilt. The thing they'd all lusted after. There was only one person who really deserved it, Baze had made them see. The lightsaber hilt belonged to Chirrut. He worshipped the Jedi, wanted to be one with his whole heart and soul.  
"You really got it for me?" Chirrut explored the hilt with his hands, marvelling. "I thought you wanted this for yourself."  
"I do, but," said Baze awkwardly, "I want you to have it."  
Chirrut's mouth on his was a soft surprise, entirely unexpected.   
  
Their warm bodies made a shelter, a peaceful oasis where nothing could touch them. Chirrut's hand clutched at him sleepily, but someone had to get up and see to breakfast. "C'mon, it's morning," said Baze, pulling himself away reluctantly.  
"Th' Force is with us," mumbled Chirrut, half-dreaming. Baze planted another kiss on his shoulder then stood up. Baze shrugged on his cape and belted on his weaponry as Chirrut yawned, stretched and whet the razors to shave his head.  
"Want some porridge, Jedi?" Baze asked, laughing.  
  
Baze couldn't bear to describe the scene he could see from the viewport of their ship. "Tell me," begged Chirrut, "Is it all gone?" His blind eyes were clouded with tears. The plume of debris was so high it reached into space. The white-hot glow of the heart of it, the shock-wave still rippling across the desert, farther, farther out. There were cracks in the desert larger than cities.  
"Yes," he said heavily. "Everything." His parents' old shop. The Temple. The place they'd exchanged their first kiss. All of their friends, their family, their whole city. It cracked the heart inside his chest.  
The acceleration pressed them both into the side of the ship as they moved into hyperspace, leaving the ruins of Jedha behind them forever.

 

_I am one with the Force._

 

Chirrut had always felt frustrated by things that were out of his reach. His sight, his parents, taken from him. His elusive Force powers, something he _knew_ he had despite the mockery of the other orphans, always just out of his grasp. It had felt as if he was always chasing through the labyrinths of his mind, hunting something just out of reach around the next corner. Everything was out of his reach, except Baze. Baze had turned up in his life one day and simply refused to leave, squatting in his spot in the old Temple and making him share it, constantly trying to outwit him in stick-fighting and children's battles. Bringing him things he'd found, old relics he knew Chirrut would enjoy touching. Mocking his belief in the Force but always fiercely attacking the other children when they did the same, bloodying noses and breaking teeth.  
  
Chirrut tried to learn more about the Jedi from what they had left behind. He only knew two of their phrases, but he repeated them endlessly, trying to absorb them into himself. "I am one with the Force. The Force is with me." Practicing turning and dodging, feeling the wind of movement from his sparring partners. Duck, dodge fast enough and they couldn't hit him. The only one who could sometimes get him was Baze. Baze got in underneath his concentration, was these days always uncomfortably in his awareness.  
  
In one of the old store-rooms of the Temple, breath catching in his chest. Baze's hot skin pressed against his, eager hands fumbling. They'd been having these rendezvous for weeks now, never naming exactly what they were doing, nervous, excited, possessive of one another. "Another practice session tonight?" Baze would ask, low-voiced, casual, and they would kiss under an archway, in an abandoned warehouse. Then one night Baze had come to his bed and simply hadn't left. They clung together all night, told secrets in soft whispers. But when Chirrut woke in the morning, his bed was empty and cold. Chirrut's heart sank. Perhaps Baze had tired of him once the thrill of pursuit had faded, as the story-cubes he listened to late at night sometimes told him about. Chirrut tried to make himself feel that this was the will of the Force. But then he heard Baze's off-key humming in the next room, and realised with a happy thrill that the early riser was just preparing breakfast. "Hey, want some porridge, lazy-bones?" asked his lover from the doorway, teasing.  
  
Jedha was burning behind them. Chirrut couldn't see it, but he could feel it - like a yawning void, where the familiar city had been obscenely destroyed. The deck of the ship was cold, against his cheek. Baze was nearby, and he could feel his anger and sadness echoing Chirrut's own. They embraced and Chirrut felt Baze's hot tears fall onto his skin. Their kiss was fierce and possessive, a defiant affirmation to the universe that one remnant of Jedha still survived. We live. We live.  
  


"I am one with the Force." Step. Avoid the blast snaking over his shoulder. "The Force is with me." Step. Duck. "I am one with the Force." Step. Sideways slightly now. "The Force is with me." Step. He was going to make it. Chirrut had never been more sure of anything. "I am one with the Force." Step. Blaster fire singed his cloak, sang in his ears. "The Force is with me." Step. He felt like one of the old Jedi knights of legend. He could finally grasp how to do it, at last. "I am one with the Force." Step. The mines and grenades wouldn't go off, because he wouldn't allow them to. "The Force is with me." Here, in front of his grasping hands. The lever. The master switch. Chirrut knew it was this one, no other. Push it down - like so - and the circuit was complete. Chirrut could _feel_ the transmission arching into orbit, could even feel the ships overhead receiving. Chirrut allowed himself one moment of perfect satisfaction. Then Baze's voice cut into his concentration.  
  
"Chirrut!" Baze was running toward him, into the field of fire. "Chirrut, come back!" No! Baze had to stay where it was safe! Chirrut lost hold of it. Heat, noise, blossomed around him. He wasn't a Jedi knight, he was a broken puppet, lying on the ground with its strings cut. Blood was in his mouth.  
  
Baze was holding him. Chirrut coughed, stirred. Something was terribly wrong inside his chest. He wasn't going to make it out this time, but that was all right if Baze lived. Baze was the one true and good thing in the universe. "Chirrut! Chirrut, don't go! Don't go," Baze was saying, frantic. "I'm here, I'm here. It's okay. It's okay."   
Chirrut smiled and tried to speak reassurance. "Look for the Force," he whispered, "and you will always find me." Something painful was happening to his body, but Chirrut felt distant from it, turning away. "I am one with the Force - "  
"And the Force is with me," Baze continued the mantra, voice choking, as Chirrut slipped away, falling like a grain of sand blown on the wind. He could finally feel the right direction open up to him.  
"I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me."

 


End file.
